Father of Android Disses Apple's Siri

Published at 12:53 PM PDT on Oct 20, 2011

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For the last few weeks, we've been babbling about Siri and its intelligent and humorous responses, but many (including you guys) have stated that voice control is nothing new and that Google had it first, which is true. So what does Android's creator think? He think's talking to your phone is totally lame.

Google Senior Vice President of Mobile Andy Rubin says that Apple's done a good job of determining that voice assistants like Siri are ready for prime time, but think's it's silly to start falling head over heals for artificial intelligence.

"I don't believe your phone should be an assistant. Your phone is a tool for communicating. You shouldn't be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone."

We want to say that Rubin is completely off here and bash him for denying the smartphone is an assistant. Last time we checked, a smartphone was born out of a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). Before Siri, smartphones were a silent assistant. They kept our calendars, contacts, and all of our other data in check — just as an assistant would do.

With Siri, that assistant received a voice, but not only that, Apple also gave it intelligence and wit - something Android's voice features (which are pretty fantastic assuming you know the input lingo) lacks.

Siri is humanizing artificial intelligence, whereas Android is still robotizing it. No wonder Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer thinks Android can only be figured out by computer scientists.

While we understand that phones are communication devices used to connect us to other human beings, smartphones have evolved into much more than just a communication tool. Smartphones are now high-powered cameras and video recorders, editing machines (iMovie), portable media players for music and video, and so much more.

And if smartphones are going to juggle all that stuff, they might as well start acting like an assistant - ones that don't just silently come into work, shuffle data and leave.